<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Take a Shot by Snickfic</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25299832">Take a Shot</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snickfic/pseuds/Snickfic'>Snickfic</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain Marvel (2019), Thor (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Caretaking, F/F, Nipple Play, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Romance, Sex Is Fun, Space Amoebas, Vaginal Fingering</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 11:48:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,629</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25299832</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snickfic/pseuds/Snickfic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The woman who hired Minn-Erva called herself Valkyrie—a legacy name, Minn-Erva assumed. She’d always heard Asgardians were stuck up their own primitive asses. “Security,” Valkyrie was saying. “We’ve got nine hundred souls, a handful of ex-gladiatorial slaves, and four trained warriors between us. We could use a hired gun or two.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Brunnhilde | Valkyrie/Minn-Erva (Marvel)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Little Black Dress Exchange 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Take a Shot</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucymonster/gifts">lucymonster</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Huge thanks to S, who did a kickass beta job on very short notice. &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The woman who hired Minn-Erva called herself Valkyrie—a legacy name, Minn-Erva assumed. She’d always heard Asgardians were stuck up their own primitive asses. “Security,” Valkyrie was saying. “We’ve got nine hundred souls, a handful of ex-gladiatorial slaves, and four trained warriors between us. We could use a hired gun or two.”</p><p>“What about money?” Minn-Erva asked. “Do you have any of that?” She’d seen the vessel they were flying. It didn’t look like the ship of someone lacking in funds, but then it didn’t look like a refugee ship, either.</p><p>“Twenty thousand units,” Valkyrie said: a price so pitiable Minn-Erva rolled her eyes. Here she’d thought the Asgardians were serious. “Consider it a deposit,” Valkyrie added. “We’ll double it when we get to our destination, and you’ll have room and board on the way.”</p><p>“And the destination?” </p><p>“You might not have heard of it. It’s called Earth.”</p><p>“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Minn-Erva said. She turned on her heel and walked out.</p><p>Except Minn-Erva had a bit of a cash flow problem, too, these days. Not every planet recognized a member of the old imperial Starforce team, but this one did. There was no work for Minn-Erva in this port; they’d barely rent her a room.</p><p>At least they’d sell her a beer, even if it was the color of piss. She was working on her third when the would-be Valkyrie slid onto a stool at the very same bar. Her posture suggested she was well-experienced at sitting on a bar stool. She ordered a star-cactus wine, and she didn’t bother to look at Minn-Erva. When the wine came, it was a brilliant translucent pink in a cylindrical glass. Minn-Erva said, “That’ll take the bottom right out of your stomach.”</p><p>“Good,” Valkyrie said. She tipped the drink back. She didn’t so much as grimace, though Minn-Erva had taken a sip of the stuff once on a dare, a hell of a lot of years ago, and she still vividly remembered the flavor. Valkyrie didn’t set the glass down until it was empty. She belched once, loudly, and then shrugged her shoulders and leaned her elbows on the bar. Minn-Erva waited for her to fall over, but she didn’t. She kept on not doing it. Finally, Valkyrie looked over at Minn-Erva and said, apparently sober, “You’re still here.”</p><p>Minn-Erva lifted her eyebrows: <i>Yeah?</i></p><p>“Fifteen thousand units now,” Valkyrie said. “Fifteen more at arrival.”</p><p>Minn-Erva snorted. “That’s not the offer you made this afternoon.”</p><p>Valkyrie shrugged. “The market’s changed.”</p><p>She’d picked up on the local gossip. Minn-Erva of Starforce: out on her ass after a couple of decades of loyal service, because suddenly the Kree Empire’s elite tactical unit wasn’t politically fashionable anymore—and then it turned out that off Hala, the empire wasn’t all that fashionable, either. “Fuck you,” Minn-Erva said.</p><p>“Guess we’ll find someone at the next port,” Valkyrie said. She turned to the bartender and gestured. “What’s that blue one? Yeah, I want a bottle of that one. I know a guy who loves blue shit,” she added in Minn-Erva’s direction. It was clearly a joke, and she clearly wasn’t going to let Minn-Erva in on it.</p><p>“C-53 doesn’t <i>have</i> units,” Minn-Erva said. “It’s off the galactic trade network. It’s even more backward than you people.”</p><p>Valkyrie hadn’t known that. Minn-Erva could see it in how thoroughly she didn’t react. And then, abruptly, she did: she scrubbed at her face with one hand. Just like that, most of the attitude leaked out of her like air hissing from a punctured hull. “Fuck,” she said quietly. She looked tired, or more than tired: limp with exhaustion, barely holding herself upright. That was likely what the star-cactus wine had been for. If you could ride out the first knock-out punch, it’d wake you right up for a good couple of hours.</p><p>Minn-Erva found herself liking Valkyrie a little better with some of that swagger taken out of her. “Five thousand to the next port,” she said. Then, because she could be generous, “Payable on delivery.”</p><p>Valkyrie snuck her a suspicious glance. “Two thousand, and you stick around to see us off after.”</p><p>Minn-Erva inclined her head. “Three thousand.”</p><p>Valkyrie was still for a moment—calculating, Minn-Erva supposed. The great backwater empire of Asgard, brought to penny-pinching. “All right, you know what? Fine.” The bartender set the bottle of blue liquor on the bar, and Valkyrie swept it up. “Grab your shit. We lift off in half an hour.”</p><p>She stalked off. She had plenty of swagger left over, as it turned out, but it was with a purpose: a warrior’s stride. Minn-Erva watched the swing of her hips and reflected it’d been a long time since she’d fucked someone with a stride like that.</p>
<hr/><p>With a tenth of its current population, the Statesman would have been the comfortable if unbearably tacky party boat it’d clearly been outfitted as. As it was, it stunk of humanity: sweat, anxiety, a suspiciously piss-like miasma that was presumably the fault of the no doubt overworked waste facilities. At least, Minn-Erva was going to firmly assume that was the source.</p><p>They were mostly Asgardian. One of the gladiatorial slaves appeared to be made of rock. A nervous little pale-skinned man with prematurely gray hair was supposedly another veteran of the gladiator ring, but that was clearly some kind of joke.</p><p>“You really are desperate,” Minn-Erva said.</p><p>Valkyrie made a sour face, but she didn’t disagree. “I hear you’re a good shot.”</p><p>“The best.”</p><p>“Hmm,” Valkyrie said, and led Minn-Erva to a little bubble-shaped observatory with a double-firing plasma cannon, outfitted with its own nuclear battery. “Came with the ship,” she said, when she saw Minn-Erva’s eyebrows rise. “The previous owner, sometimes he liked to sit down with a cocktail and take pot shots at whatever came into view. Can you shoot it?”</p><p>“I’ll do all right,” Minn-Erva said. It’d been a couple of decades since she’d aimed a plasma cannon, but unlimited practice ammunition could do a lot to catch a person up to speed. “Do you guys have any garbage you want to off-load? I’ll take some pot shots of my own.”</p><p>The Asgardians did not in fact have any garbage—too worried about saving every scrap and crumb—but they were swinging by an asteroid belt on their way out of the system. At a word from Valkyrie, they swung a little closer. It took fifteen rounds before Minn-Erva settled into the feel of the controls, the warping of perception across that much space, the idiosyncrasies of the targeting system. She was nine for the next ten asteroids. Each one burst in a shimmer of dust particles and then was gone, the debris visible only to spectrometers.</p><p>Next, Minn-Erva was introduced to the governing council of this stinking little floating nation. Nobody asked her if she wanted to be. The king was missing an eye—didn’t they have organ regrowth facilities? Stop by any Kree world, even a Nova one, and they could fix that for him. He shook Minn-Erva’s hand, thanked her gravely, and promptly forgot she was there.</p><p>Valkyrie vouched for Minn-Erva’s shot. It had been Valkyrie’s idea to bring more security on at all, it seemed, and the necessity of the expense had not been universally agreed upon. “Our supplies—” began the man introduced to Minn-Erva as the king’s brother, though they looked nothing alike.</p><p>“Will be a little safer now,” Valkyrie said. She sat a little straighter, shoulders set, expression unyielding. “I don’t like this part of space.”</p><p>“So you’ve said,” the king said peaceably, which quieted the prince, and the discussion moved to other, more tedious subjects, like sewage. Minn-Erva had been right about the waste facilities. </p><p>After the council meeting, Valkyrie pointed Minn-Erva towards the ship’s mess, which appeared to be a space previously dedicated to mixing drinks. Minn-Erva took her dubious stew-thing floating with protein cubes back to the plasma cannon. The stew tasted better than it looked—a low bar, granted. As she was spooning the last cube into her mouth, she saw movement in the reflection of the bubble window. Valkyrie.</p><p>“We have a guy who can see everything,” Valkyrie said. “Just for your information. We haven’t been setting watches.”</p><p>Minn-Erva took that in while she chewed. The protein cubes were slightly rubbery. After swallowing, she said, “Nice surveillance if you can get it.”</p><p>“It works out all right. You’re bunking with me,” Valkyrie added. Defensively, against a protest Minn-Erva hadn’t even formed yet, she said, “We’re a little overcrowded.”</p><p>“You don’t say.”</p><p>Valkyrie made a sour face. “I’ll show you.”</p><p>The cabin clearly hadn’t been intended as a cabin. <i>Bunking</i> was a euphemism; there was a bedroll on the floor and another tied up in the corner which, when unrolled, would take up most of the remaining space. Minn-Erva dropped her gear at the door. “You can sleep now, if you want,” Valkyrie said. “I’ve got things to see to.”</p><p>She looked ready to drop where she stood and equally ready to slog on for another two days, reflexes and judgment dulling by the hour. Whatever. It wasn’t Minn-Erva’s concern. “Just be quiet when you come in,” she said, and went to see what kind of clean-up facilities were offered in the communal refreshment room down the hall.</p>
<hr/><p>Valkyrie probably did try to be quiet, but Minn-Erva’d been a sellsword for a decade now, and she didn’t sleep through much. She lay with her eyes shut and listened to the rustlings of clothes removed, the soft thunk of boots set aside. Valkyrie lay down, but not without drawing her sword—and putting it under her pillow, probably. A <i>sword</i>.</p><p>When Valkyrie fell asleep, Minn-Erva would, too. Only Valkyrie didn’t. Fifteen minutes, twenty, and though she didn’t move, her breath didn’t slow, either. Finally, very quietly, she said, “Fuck.”</p><p>Minn-Erva opened her eyes to see Valkyrie staring up at the ceiling, hands fisted at her sides on the mat. The after-effects of the wine earlier, probably. “For fuck’s sake, go to sleep,” Minn-Erva said.</p><p>Valkyrie didn’t seem surprised she was awake. “Do you think I’m not trying?”</p><p>They’d had a solution for this back in Starforce, an effective one, if not quite officially sanctioned. Minn-Erva weighed her chances of falling asleep if she let things alone, of getting a sword in the ribs if she didn’t. She sat up and, telegraphing all her moves, straddled Valkyrie’s hips.</p><p>“Really,” Valkyrie said flatly, but she didn’t go for the sword.</p><p>“Why not?” Minn-Erva said. “Maybe it’ll get you to chill the fuck out.”</p><p>“And you’ll get a shag out of it.”</p><p>“You’re the one who decided I should bunk here. Don’t tell me this didn’t cross your mind.”</p><p>For a moment she thought Valkyrie was going to lie to her. Then Valkyrie made a face and threaded her fingers through Minn-Erva’s hair. “What the hell,” she said, and tugged Minn-Erva down for a kiss.</p><p>She started out a little slow, a little soft, but she caught up pretty fast, especially once Minn-Erva pushed her tongue into Valkyrie’s mouth. When Minn-Erva was bored with kissing, she slid down Valkyrie’s body, rucked up her shirt, and took Valkyrie’s nipple in her teeth. Valkyrie gasped and kicked at Minn-Erva—weakly, probably just enough to bruise. </p><p>And then, abruptly, Minn-Erva found herself on her back, Valkyrie’s hand burrowing into her underwear. Valkyrie’s teeth gleamed bright and faintly orange in the glow of the door’s control panel, and for the first time since Minn-Erva had met her, she looked alive.</p><p>Minn-Erva came around Valkyrie’s fingers, buried roughly inside her. Then she turned the two of them over again, which Valkyrie seemed amenable to; Minn-Erva was getting the idea nothing moved Valkyrie anywhere she didn't want to go. Minn-Erva buried her face between Valkyrie’s legs, lipping at her wiry dark hair, tonguing at her clit until her thighs trembled.</p><p>“Thanks,” Valkyrie said afterwards, voice raspy with orgasm and too many hours awake.</p><p>Minn-Erva didn’t fuck people for the gratitude. “Yeah,” she said. She turned her back on Valkyrie and tucked back into her bedroll. A few minutes later, finally, Valkyrie went to sleep.</p>
<hr/><p>The Asgardians were a depressing bunch. The whole ship was sour with their grief and also other things, since the shower facilities were as inadequate as the toilets. Worse, the Asgardians were <i>curious</i>. Minn-Erva was a new body on board and apparently the first Kree most of them had met, and that made her a novelty. Even the triple-barrel Ravager pistol she’d won in a bet was a point of interest, and somehow they all wanted to touch it. “I’ll cut your hand off, you little shit,” Minn-Erva said, without looking. She spooned more of the protein-cube stew in her mouth. It was the same as the day before. Minn-Erva was beginning to doubt the ship served anything else.</p><p>The girl retreated a few inches down the bench, not nearly as cowed as Minn-Erva would have liked. “Loki’s blue, too,” the girl said. </p><p>Without trying or particularly wanting to, Minn-Erva had learned the names of most of the principals on this grubby little voyage. She knew for a fact that the king’s brother was not blue. “Get lost.”</p><p>“You heard her,” said a voice at Minn-Erva’s shoulder. “Shoo.” The girl’s eyes widened, and she slipped away like a shadow. <i>That</i> was the response Minn-Erva had been hoping for with the amputation threat. Valkyrie took the girl’s place on the bench next to Minn-Erva and set her own bowl of stew on the table.</p><p>There were a lot of other places Valkyrie could have chosen to be. Their shared quarters; the bridge, keeping company with their golden-eyed surveillance system; sitting in another interminable council meeting. Meetings like those were Minn-Erva’s number one reason for never becoming an officer, never mind that she was wasted in Starforce, fuck you very much Mother. She’d only had to sit in on the one to know they weren’t Valkyrie’s forte, either. Valkyrie made things happen; she didn’t want to have to talk about them first. </p><p>“You could do a lot better for yourself than this,” Minn-Erva said. She gestured with her spoon broadly enough to include the whole stinking ship.</p><p>Valkyrie snorted. “I could do a lot worse. I have done,” she added quietly, as if Minn-Erva gave a damn about Valkyrie’s past or anything else about her except maybe the taste of her cunt and the weight of her breast in Minn-Erva’s hand. </p><p>In fairness, she’d liked both of those quite a bit. </p><p>Minn-Erva spent the afternoon in the gunner’s perch with the cannon. The ship was well beyond any star systems now, and the chances of something drifting by for Minn-Erva to shoot at were infinitesimally small. The targeting system had a training module, though. Those were never as good as the real thing, but Minn-Erva spent a couple of hours fucking around with it anyway, firing imaginary plasma at phantom targets of a variety of sizes and speeds and distances. Who the hell knew the next time she’d get her hands on a plasma cannon.</p><p>Valkyrie came in late again that night. Minn-Erva had waited up this time. “You gonna have trouble sleeping again?”</p><p>Valkyrie gave her a speculative look. “I feel like you’ve got a plan to make sure I don’t.”</p><p>“Maybe if you ask nicely.”</p><p>Valkyrie hummed consideringly and didn’t reply. She dressed down to her underwear, folded her clothes, and set them aside. The process took longer than it should have; Valkyrie’s steps were dragging, and she got stuck for a few moments with her shirt in one hand, staring at nothing. But eventually she turned to Minn-Erva with a glint in her eye. “Well?”</p><p>“Is that you asking nicely?”</p><p>“I’m not much of a talker,” Valkyrie said. Her smirk promised filthy things. “More of a doer. I could show you.”</p><p>Minn-Erva allowed that she was willing to be shown. The demonstration that followed definitely beat falling asleep alone.</p>
<hr/><p>By day three, Minn-Erva was bored out of her skull. Milk runs were one thing, but nobody even needed her as security, since Thor wandered through the ship meeting his subjects at all hours without any apparent threat to his person, and Loki seemed never to appear at all. There were only so many hours a person could sleep, work out, or jerk off, especially if she wanted to be alert in case of an emergency. Even the novelty of handling the cannon palled after a while, although she put a couple more hours in on it anyway.</p><p>She was in the corner of the ship’s recently converted gym and training ground trying to meditate—the noise of others nearby made it harder, which made it a challenge, which made it marginally less boring than meditation usually was—when Valkyrie’s voice rose above the rest. “Pair up!”</p><p>Minn-Erva opened her eyes. She found that the gym had gotten busier and that most of the crowd were young ones. Valkyrie was directing traffic, breaking up a pair of children here, putting together a new pair there. Each pair found itself a space far enough from the others to move a little. It was clear they’d all done this before. Valkyrie called another instruction, and all her pupils settled into a fighting stance.</p><p>It was all less organized than Minn-Erva’s martial academy had ever been. These children hadn’t had orderliness drilled into them like Minn-Erva had; these <i>were</i> the drills. They were untrained, their habits often poor. They yelled to each other and laughed. And to a child, every one of them jumped to follow Valkyrie’s directions. Every one of them lit up when she offered a word of praise, even the oldest ones who ought to have learned some dignity by now, some reserve.</p><p>Eventually, though, high spirits won over awe, and some began to call for Valkyrie to show them some moves of her own. Minn-Erva judged it’d been a bit less than two hours since they’d begun, a better showing than she’d expected, especially from some of the youngest. The cries grew louder, and finally Valkyrie stopped pretending she couldn’t hear. “You want me to fight somebody, is that it?”</p><p>Childish voices rose in agreement.</p><p>“Who do you want me to fight?”</p><p>Several suggestions were thrown out, but one high voice piped, “The blue lady!”</p><p>Valkyrie looked over at Minn-Erva. So she’d noticed her, then; Minn-Erva hadn’t been sure. “You want to come get your arse kicked? Of course you don’t have to,” Valkyrie added, oh so innocently, to several delighted cheers from the audience. Valkyrie turned to them, mock-stern. “No, she doesn’t. She’s our guest, we don’t make guests get their arses kicked if they don’t want.”</p><p>“Guest?” Minn-Erva pushed to her feet. More cheering.</p><p>Valkyrie shrugged. “Close enough.” As Minn-Erva got closer, Valkyrie said for Minn-Erva’s ears alone, “You really don’t have to.”</p><p>“What, and let you show me up in front of all these little shits?”</p><p>Valkyrie’s grin lit her whole face. It was a lot to have turned on a person all at once. Suddenly Minn-Erva felt a little more sympathy for those awkward, glowing kids on the mat whose fighting stance Valkyrie had just approved of. “You want weapons?” Valkyrie asked.</p><p>The kids hadn’t been practicing with weapons. “Just these are fine,” she said, showing Valkyrie her palms.</p><p>A ring cleared at the center of the room without Valkyrie ever having to ask for it. It occurred to Minn-Erva that the kids had done this before, too, that probably Valkyrie putting on a show was their reward for a good morning’s work. Valkyrie unbuckled her sword belt and set it aside. Minn-Erva was already wearing her casual fatigues. Valkyrie stepped into the ring, wriggled her fingers, and asked with a smirk, “Are you ready?”</p><p>Almost certainly not. Minn-Erva lifted her chin. “Hit me.”</p><p>Valkyrie didn’t—not immediately. She circled a little, hands hanging at her sides. Minn-Erva rotated to keep Valkyrie in front of her, maintaining a loose, easy stance and letting Valkyrie set the pace. This was, after all, her show. Valkyrie’s attack came almost casually: an uppercut that Minn-Erva blocked just in time, followed by a kick that she spun to avoid. “I’m feeling her out,” Valkyrie called to the kids. “Testing her reaction times, how she moves.”</p><p>“You know how I move,” Minn-Erva said, arching an eyebrow. Someone in the crowd laughed, all alone—someone with a filthier mind than the rest.</p><p>Valkyrie rolled her eyes, and that was when Minn-Erva took her shot: she stepped in with a jab to Valkyrie’s jaw—blocked—and another to her kidneys, which landed. Valkyrie coughed in surprise. When she met Minn-Erva’s gaze, Minn-Erva saw new respect there. “Don’t look so impressed,” Minn-Erva said. “You did hire me.”</p><p>“Yeah, but not for this.” Valkyrie made another couple of moves, easily blockable, and then landed a kick to Minn-Erva’s thigh that sent her stumbling. </p><p>She didn’t follow it up with anything, though, giving Minn-Erva a chance to right herself. “I guess the Starforce name still means something, after all,” Minn-Erva said.</p><p>Valkyrie shrugged. “Hard to keep up with all the names of these new ‘elite squads.’ As soon as they show up they’re gone.”</p><p>“<i>New</i>,” Minn-Erva repeated in disbelief. And in that moment of distraction, Valkyrie took her down: a punch to the kidneys, kick to the ribs, an upper cut Minn-Erva barely blocked, and then a foot hooking her behind her heel and landing her flat on her back. Minn-Erva lay gasping for a moment while Valkyrie loomed over her. Minn-Erva was vaguely aware of high-pitched cheers in the background. She said, “You’ve been toying with me.”</p><p>“You’re still losing,” Valkyrie said with a smirk. She held out a hand to help Minn-Erva to her feet. It was a prime opportunity for a dirty trick, and Minn-Erva took it. She yanked down with one hand, kicked up with the other, and flipped Valkyrie over her head. The crowd instantly hushed. Minn-Erva sprang to her feet, breath mostly restored.</p><p>Valkyrie came up laughing. “And you’ve been holding out on me,” she said.</p><p>Minn-Erva shrugged, not even trying not to look smug as hell. “Is that a concession?”</p><p>“Hah!” Valkyrie said, and came in swinging.</p><p>Valkyrie kept going easy on her, but Minn-Erva didn’t mind. The bouts would have all ended pretty much immediately if Valkyrie had applied herself, which would have been disappointing, because sparring with her was <i>fun</i>. She came back from every hit laughing. All that swagger and sheer raw strength Minn-Erva had first seen in the bar was on full display, evident in every move, and the noises Valkyrie made on the training mat were a lot like the ones she made in bed. Sweat began to bead on her skin, and suddenly there was nothing in the world Minn-Erva wanted as much as to kiss away that shining dampness on Valkyrie’s upper lip. The next time Valkyrie got Minn-Erva in a hold, she said softly, “I just realized I left something in our quarters.”</p><p>“What?” Valkyrie said, pulling back to look at Minn-Erva.</p><p>Minn-Erva rolled her eyes. “I forgot something. You should come help me get it when we’re done here.” Valkyrie kept staring blankly. For fuck’s sake. Pitched for Valkyrie alone, Minn-Erva said, “I want to get you alone and eat you out until you scream.”</p><p>Valkyrie dropped her.</p><p>From her back, Minn-Erva said, “Not the move I was expecting.”</p><p>“That was enough of a demonstration,” Valkyrie called. Oh right, this was supposed to be educational. Minn-Erva had pretty much forgotten their audience a while back. “Time for your cool-downs.” She didn’t offer Minn-Erva a hand up this time, so Minn-Erva pushed to her feet on her own. Valkyrie turned on her and whispered harshly, “I have responsibilities. I can’t just disappear for a quick roll in the sack. I’ve already taken too long here. They were expecting me on the engine deck a half an hour ago.” With that, she stalked away. </p><p>Minn-Erva watched her go, all that simmering heat in her gut thoroughly cooled. “Well, fuck you, too,” she said. A little boy nearby gasped in quiet astonishment, and Minn-Erva scowled at him until he fled.</p>
<hr/><p>Valkyrie was late to bed that night, again. Minn-Erva was sitting up with her tablet when Valkyrie came in. The ship’s library were mostly limited to historical Asgardian texts or cosmologically improbable erotica, and Minn-Erva was deeply disinterested in erotica just at the moment, so she was currently mired in the unlikely battles of the man who, if she remembered her galactipolitics class, eventually became Thor’s grandfather.</p><p>Valkyrie’s steps dragged as she came in and began to take her layers off one piece at a time. She glanced Minn-Erva’s way but didn’t say anything. </p><p>This wasn’t Minn-Erva’s business. She had no reason to give a damn. She was off the ship in another few days anyway, leaving all this behind her. And yet. “You work too hard,” she said at last. “And before you tell me I <i>don’t</i> work, I’ll remind you that you hired me to do exactly what I’m doing.”</p><p>“Pretty sure I know how hard you work.” Valkyrie slumped onto her bedroll.</p><p>“Oh, yeah?” Tension crackled in the air like the warning before an electrical storm, like an all-out, no-holds-barred brawl. Minn-Erva itched for it, which wasn’t very professional, but then Valkyrie had just shit on her profession, so who the hell cared. “Why don’t you tell me about it, then.”</p><p>Valkyrie’s gaze was dark and bottomless in the shadows of the room’s half-light. “You do just enough to survive. You don’t give a shit about anyone except yourself. You’ve got no loyalty, no allegiance. Any extra money you spend on booze, or maybe not booze but something like it, something that doesn’t matter and doesn’t last any longer than the time it takes to down it, but it’s still better than not having it, because without it you wouldn’t have anything at all.”</p><p>Minn-Erva scoffed. “I don’t think that’s me you’re talking about.” She’d been braced for irritation, for a fight. She hadn’t planned to feel <i>sorry</i> for Valkyrie.</p><p>“No?” Valkyrie lifted her chin. “Then why don’t you tell me which parts I got wrong.”</p><p>“The part where I feel bad about it. Also the booze,” Minn-Erva added. “Not really my thing. My vices run more to screwing.”</p><p>Valkyrie looked down. Her throat worked. After a moment she said, “You’re doing better than I did, then.”</p><p>“Better than you <i>are</i> doing,” Minn-Erva corrected. “These shitheads don’t deserve you.”</p><p>Valkyrie gave her a sharp look. “Maybe not, but they need me.”</p><p>“Yeah, I remember what that felt like,” Minn-Erva scoffed. “Feels good, right? And when they stop needing you, who’ll you be then?” Now she had Valkyrie’s full attention, but she didn’t want it. She hadn’t meant to say any of that. “Look, either way, you can’t keep doing what you’re doing. You’re not taking care of yourself. You’ll miss a step one of these days on one of these shit little waystations, and some idiot opportunist with a blaster is going to take your head off.”</p><p>Valkyrie looked at her for a long time. The room’s heavy shadows welled like pools under her eyes. “Why do you care?”</p><p>Minn-Erva opened her mouth. She closed it again. “I don’t like waste,” she said at last. It felt truer than she meant it to, than any principle of the Kree had any right to be. </p><p>Valkyrie laughed softly. “I guess I’ll take that as a compliment.”</p><p>“You should.”</p><p>They sat quietly for a little while, Valkyrie looking at a corner of the floor and Minn-Erva looking at her. Eventually Valkyrie peeled back the top layer of her bedroll and climbed in. A part of Minn-Erva still itched for a conclusion to all the sparring, but on the other hand she was bruised to hell, not that she’d give Valkyrie the satisfaction of telling her. She thought Valkyrie had to be a little bruised, too, never mind that famed Asgardian resilience. </p><p>Minn-Erva got up from the bulkhead she’d been sitting against, put her tablet aside, and stripped down to her underwear. She gestured the last light off. Just as she was lying down, Valkyrie said quietly, “That was fun today, though. And the kids liked it.”</p><p>Minn-Erva let that lie a bit. “You’re welcome,” she said at last, and firmly shut her eyes.</p>
<hr/><p>The next afternoon found Minn-Erva back in the gym, pleasantly warm from a workout and meditating again, or at least pretending to. When the noise level rose, she opened her eyes and watched a bunch of untrained youngsters attempt to warm up. There seemed to be some kind of keep away game involved. One of them strayed close enough to Minn-Erva’s corner for her to call to him. “Is this what Valkyrie tells you all to do?” Minn-Erva asked, gesturing towards the melee.</p><p>The kid startled at her voice and again when he saw who it was, but he answered readily enough. “She says we have to run until we get hot, so our muscles don’t get sore.” The kid seemed dubious about this line of reasoning.</p><p>“Hmm.” Minn-Erva grimaced to herself, as if she hadn’t already made her decision by the time she called the kid over. “The Kree warm up differently. There’s no running around. You and a couple of friends can join me if you do exactly what I say.”</p><p>The kid’s eyes got bigger. He nodded vigorously.</p><p>“Go on, then. You’ve got sixty seconds.”</p><p>There was no time display in the room, but it didn’t matter, because the kid dashed off and came back with five others about his age in under thirty. They approached her warily, eyes huge, mouths shut, so she had managed to strike a <i>little</i> terror in some hearts aboard ship. That was satisfying and also helpful, in this case.</p><p>“You’re going to do exactly what I say,” she told them. They all nodded. </p><p>She directed them to each find some space—already she could see the room wasn’t big enough to lead the whole pack of them this way—and then she began to show them the ancient training forms, one at a time, the ones for resting and the ones for building energy and the transition forms in between. The kids were, of course, clumsy and imprecise. She left them to it; corrections could come later, assuming there was a later.</p><p>“I don’t feel hot,” one of the kids after about five minutes.</p><p>“Yet,” Minn-Erva said drily, and the kid flushed sharply and shut up.</p><p>Once they had some vague idea of enough positions to make things interesting, she began to put the positions together in a flow. She narrated as she moved, trying to remember the kind of thing her earliest martial teachers had said. She talked the kids through the whole sequence three times, and then she stood and said, “Now I’m going to watch you.”</p><p>They’d picked up an audience: another five kids hovering at the edges, watching curiously. “You,” Minn-Erva called sharply. One of her kids fell over in alarm; the kid she was looking at peered over her shoulder as if in hope Minn-Erva was talking to someone else. “You don’t get to watch,” Minn-Erva said, and the kid deflated. “You’re going to either do what we’re doing, or you’re going to run. Which is it?”</p><p>The kid immediately dropped to the floor, where Minn-Erva’s tiny squad was now rising up on their bellies. A few of the other onlookers joined the first kid; two more hurried away to where the rest of the mob that seemed to be jogging a ring around the training room. Two minutes later, one of them returned and joined in.</p><p>Twenty minutes after they’d started, as all Minn-Erva’s trainees were looking sufficiently flushed with exertion, Valkyrie walked in. “Training in five!” she called, and then she came over to join Minn-Erva. “Are you—suborning my kids?”</p><p>“You tell me.”</p><p>Valkyrie looked at the kids, all bending forward in something like unison with their arms held straight behind them. She was clearly trying to keep a straight face; she also clearly wasn’t trying very hard. “You’re really bored.”</p><p>“You haven’t given me anything to shoot at.” </p><p>Valkyrie slanted Minn-Erva a sideways glance. “Do you end up running kids in Kree drills on all your jobs?”</p><p>There was no answer here that suited Minn-Erva’s image. She went for the true one. “I definitely fucking do not.”</p><p>“Hmm,” Valkyrie said meaningfully, but said no more. Minn-Erva retreated back to her corner to watch Valkyrie put the kids through their paces. It occurred to Minn-Erva that probably all the hand-to-hand was because the kids didn’t have practice weapons, although knowing the Asgardians, probably their practice weapons of choice would be swords. Eventually, Valkyrie started calling kids to the center of the room one at a time. Apparently the reward for the kids with the best performance for the day—or in at least one case, probably the most effort put forth, however uselessly—was to spar with Valkyrie herself.</p><p>If Valkyrie had been giving Minn-Erva fifty percent, she was giving most of these kids about ten. Today Valkyrie moved in prescribed patterns, clearly demonstrating the day’s lessons in footwork, which meant she lacked the fluid spontaneity Minn-Erva had seen the day before. Still, she moved with a deliberate, brutal grace that Minn-Erva could appreciate. She got to spend another half hour or so appreciating it before Valkyrie called it quits.</p><p>She passed close by Valkyrie on her way out. “Hot,” Minn-Erva whispered in Valkyrie’s ear, and then strode out the door.</p>
<hr/><p>It wasn’t quite so late when Valkyrie walked into their quarters that night. She took a long, speculative look at Minn-Erva, sitting cross-legged with the same borrowed tablet. Valkyrie walked over, straddled Minn-Erva’s lap, and sank into it. “Oh yeah?” Minn-Erva said.</p><p>“Yeah,” Valkyrie breathed. She draped her arms arounds Minn-Erva’s neck and pressed their mouths together. Valkyrie’s was hot, her breath already harsh. </p><p>Minn-Erva dug her fingers into Valkyrie’s hair and pulled her closer. Valkyrie was a warm, grounding weight in her lap. An edge of her leather armor dug into Minn-Erva’s thigh. She pushed Minn-Erva against the bulkhead and kissed her so hungrily that Minn-Erva shrugged away after a moment. “What brought this on?”</p><p>“You were hot out there today, too,” Valkyrie said. </p><p>“When?” Minn-Erva said, incredulous. “You don’t mean with the kids.”</p><p>Valkyrie hummed a disagreement. “I appreciated the help.” Before Minn-Erva could argue with that interpretation, Valkyrie kissed her again. She chased inside Minn-Erva’s mouth with her tongue, brushed her lips down Minn-Erva’s jaw and up again until Minn-Erva was gasping right along with her. Minn-Erva usually didn’t even like kissing that much. </p><p>She liked getting her hands on skin, though, so she started working on the buckles that held Valkyrie together. She was on what she thought was the last one when Valkyrie palmed Minn-Erva’s breast through her lightweight sleep shirt. “I didn’t get to see these before.”</p><p>They’d never quite gotten around to the undressing the other two times. “They’re blue,” Minn-Erva told her.</p><p>Valkyrie’s teeth shone bright in the dimness. “Looking forward to ‘em.”</p><p>Minn-Erva got the buckle open, but Valkyrie’s armor still seemed firmly attached. “How the hell do you get this off?” she asked, tugging on Valkyrie’s breastplate. Obviously she should have paid more attention the other times Valkyrie had gotten naked. </p><p>Snickering, Valkyrie pushed up onto her knees, checked the various catches Minn-Erva had loosened, and then drew the whole apparatus over her head. Underneath she wore a slim black compression tank. Minn-Erva hooked her fingers under the hem and tugged it up, and then she swept her hands underneath, along Valkyrie’s ribs and over smooth, warm skin. Valkyrie inhaled sharply. Her diaphragm expanded against the heels of Minn-Erva’s hands. Here was the breath that powered Valkyrie through an attack or an evasive maneuver.</p><p>Minn-Erva dropped her hands down to Valkyrie’s thighs. Valkyrie shifted her weight, and her muscles bunched and contracted under Minn-Erva’s palms. “You’re fucking hot when you fight.”</p><p>Valkyrie huffed a soft laugh. </p><p>“What?</p><p>“Just, haven’t heard that in a while. Me and my squadron, we always shagged after a battle.”</p><p>Minn-Erva hadn’t seen any sign of a squadron, and no one else had mentioned one. These comrades in arms were all gone, then. “When you won or when you lost?”</p><p>“Either.”</p><p>“A hell of a scene,” Minn-Erva said, not sure whether she meant the battle or the shagging. Both, she decided. She caught the hem of Valkyrie’s shirt instead and pulled it up over her head and raised arms. Valkyrie was bare underneath. Minn-Erva hadn’t gotten a good look at her breasts, either. They were small, and the nipples were dark. They looked really fucking good on her. Minn-Erva intended to suck on at least one of those nipples before the night was out.</p><p>She peeled Valkyrie’s pants off her next and then, with some forethought she would probably congratulate herself on later, Valkyrie’s underpants also. Valkyrie tossed both at the head of her own bedroll. Then Minn-Erva uncrossed her legs, stretched them out, and guided Valkyrie down onto her lap again. She liked the weight of Valkyrie on her thighs, moving against her. Maybe Valkyrie was rubbing off on her—heh—because what Minn-Erva wanted to do was kiss her again. So she did. She kissed her, hot and open-mouthed. She cupped one of Valkyrie’s breasts in her hand and squeezed, and she was rewarded with another sharp inhale. “You weren’t so bad yourself,” Valkyrie said. “Yesterday.”</p><p>“No shit I wasn’t.” </p><p>Valkyrie shook her head, the corners of her mouth twitching. She swept her hands over Minn-Erva’s shoulders, cupped her jaw, and kissed Minn-Erva’s mouth. Her other hand fell to Minn-Erva’s breast. She thumbed over the nipple.</p><p>Without warning, she twisted it sharply, sending a shock of pleasure-pain directly to Minn-Erva’s cunt. “<i>Fuck</i>,” Minn-Erva said. She looked up to find Valkyrie grinning at her. “Oh, it’s fucking on.” She shoved Valkyrie off her lap, and she kept shoving until Valkyrie was on her back, eyes bright and full of mischief. Minn-Erva crawled on top of her and took Valkyrie’s nipple between her teeth. </p><p>Valkyrie hissed. “Not too hard.”</p><p>“Oh, so she has <i>some</i> weaknesses,” Minn-Erva said, but when she put her mouth to Valkyrie again, she only nibbled, teasing with her teeth until the nipple was erect and then licking over it. Valkyrie shifted to reach down between her own legs. Valkyrie’s fingers were on her clit, so Minn-Erva reached for her cunt and found her slick with arousal. Valkyrie squirmed as Minn-Erva coated her fingers in that wetness. Then she dipped her fingertips in the source, and Valkyrie squirmed again, rolling her hips up to meet Minn-Erva and the press of her own fingers against her clit. </p><p>Minn-Erva closed her mouth around Valkyrie’s nipple and sucked. Valkyrie keened in the back of her throat. “Keep doing that,” she said, fisting her free hand in Minn-Erva’s hair. Minn-Erva smiled around the nub, and she kept doing it while thrusting slowly in and out of Valkyrie’s cunt.</p><p>“Fuck,” Valkyrie said eventually. She was clenching around Minn-Erva’s fingers, her hips stuttering as she reached for release that was beyond her grasp. Then Minn-Erva bit her just a little harder than she had before, and Valkyrie arched against her at last, muttering, “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”</p><p>When it was all over but the gasping, Minn-Erva shoved up onto her hands to get a real look at Valkyrie. “What?” Valkyrie asked, when she finally peeled her eyes open again.</p><p>“Not so bad, taking a little time off, right?”</p><p>Valkyrie was too relaxed to muster a real grimace. “I should be asleep now.”</p><p>Minn-Erva snorted. “So you’re leaving me to take care of myself?”</p><p>“No,” Valkyrie said, drawing the word out. She lifted a clumsy hand and pressed it to Minn-Erva’s breast. “You get your own clothes off, though. Do it so I can see it, yeah?”</p><p>So Minn-Erva stood up. She lifted her shirt over her head in a purely decorative stretch, hands clasped high above her, to show off her breasts. Valkyrie’s eyes were dark with appreciation. Minn-Erva stepped out of the shorts she wore for sleep and kicked them aside, and then she sank to her knees astride Valkyrie’s thighs.</p><p>“Turn off the lights, will you?” Valkyrie said. Minn-Erva gestured, and out they went, leaving nothing but the orange glow of the door’s display panel. Then she found herself smoothly but firmly put on her back. </p><p>Valkyrie spent a few minutes giving Minn-Erva’s breasts the kind of attention Minn-Erva had given hers. “You can bite,” Minn-Erva said, and then hissed in pleasure when Valkyrie’s teeth sank in. Valkyrie rolled the other nipple between her fingers, and each spark of pain echoed deliciously, deep in Minn-Erva’s gut. </p><p>Eventually Valkyrie pulled off and began kissing a circuit around the nipple, a maddening, too-gentle motion that made Minn-Erva hiss with impatience. “Shh,” Valkyrie said. Minn-Erva grunted and tried to push Valkyrie far enough off her to at least reach her own fucking clit. Valkyrie held her down effortlessly, like Minn-Erva had always thought she could.</p><p>Valkyrie slid her hand over Minn-Erva’s belly and down until she reached Minn-Erva’s clit. She stroked along it with the same teasing, useless pressure. And into this ever tightening frustration, Valkyrie murmured, “You could come with us.”</p><p>There was no sound at all but the rasp of their shared breath: give one up for the party boat with really good sound dampeners. Minn-Erva ached with desire, hips angled to shove her into Valkyrie’s hand, so it took her a moment to realize what Valkyrie had said. “Come with you,” she said, disbelieving. “To <i>Earth</i>.”</p><p>Valkyrie’s grimace was just visible. The sheen of her sweat glistened orange. “Yeah, when I ask girls back to my place, I usually mean someplace nicer.” </p><p>“Really,” Minn-Erva said flatly.</p><p>“Okay, no, that’s a total fucking lie.” Valkyrie’s eyes sparkled with humor. It was a fucking good look on her. Very distracting. Minn-Erva tugged her down to kiss that smirk right off her lips.</p><p>Much later, when they were both satisfied at last and near sleep, Valkyrie said quietly, “We could use you. On the trip, but also once we get there—we’re going to need all hands.”</p><p>“I—” Minn-Erva began, having no idea what she was going to say.</p><p>“Just think about it. You could corrupt the kids with more Kree martial arts stuff. Make sure I sleep at night,” Valkyrie said.</p><p>Her breath was soft and warm on Minn-Erva’s bare chest, a decent substitute for the shirt Minn-Erva had never quite gotten around to retrieving. For a moment, Minn-Erva <i>considered</i> thinking before deciding she would rather sleep. She closed her hand over Valkyrie’s hip and let her mind drift.</p>
<hr/><p>Minn-Erva showed up to another of those council meetings in the room painted in pink and green swirls. Whatever, she was bored, and also—well, she was bored. That was all. Thor offered her a confused smile when he saw her; she couldn’t tell if he remembered having ever seen her before. He didn’t tell her to leave, though. Some security they had on this boat. Valkyrie wasn’t there yet, and anyway Minn-Erva wasn’t there <i>for</i> Valkyrie, so she ended up in a swivel chair next to Bruce, the little anxious man. He was from C-53 himself, it turned out, a much likelier history than a gladiator ring.</p><p>Valkyrie arrived just as Thor was calling the meeting to attention. She raised her eyebrows in Minn-Erva’s direction and took the seat nearest the door.</p><p>Thor cleared his throat again. “All right, in three days Heimdall says we can dock at the Moorana orbital ring. How are supplies looking until then?” Supplies were looking adequate, apparently, although Minn-Erva thought that was a generous appraisal, considering breakfast had been yet more protein cube stew. “We’ll stock up there for the long run to Gloxnar’s Folly, and once we get there, we’ll—”</p><p>“No, you won’t,” Minn-Erva said, without any intention of doing so. Everyone turned to look at her. She rolled her eyes. “Do you keep up with <i>any</i> galactic news? The Folly and its sister station are in the middle of a military standoff. One side or the other will probably just blast you out of the sky on sight.”</p><p>This news landed somberly. “Heimdall?” Thor said.</p><p>“As I’ve said before, I can’t see that far without assistance of some kind. Lacking the Bifrost…” Heimdall shrugged. He turned to Minn-Erva. “What waystation would you choose?” </p><p>“Supposing,” Loki added pointedly, “You had a ship full of fragile, perishable cargo and limited resources.”</p><p>Everyone around the weird, misshapen table looked at Minn-Erva with interest. She glowered back. “For fuck’s sake,” she said at last. “Have you got any kind of topological map of this arm of the galaxy?” The guy made of rock immediately began fumbling with a handheld control. Across the table, Minn-Erva could feel Valkyrie watching her with an intent, dark-eyed gaze. “You people are not paying me enough to fucking consult,” Minn-Erva muttered to Bruce. Bruce wisely kept his mouth shut.</p><p>When they’d worked out an alternate route, they moved on to ship maintenance, which Minn-Erva gratefully tuned out. She watched Valkyrie instead, who rolled her eyes often but offered suggestions in all seriousness that were considered with equal gravity by others around the table. Two minutes later, Valkyrie and Loki were yelling at each other about some point of Asgardian technology Minn-Erva hadn’t bothered to follow.</p><p>It bore no resemblance to any Kree meeting Minn-Erva had ever attended. At one point Thor made a joke about his missing eye. Eventually he declared it a good morning’s work and broke them for lunch. He caught Minn-Erva as she was escaping. “Minn-Erva,” he said, having apparently learned her name over the course of the meeting. “Thank you for sharing your insight.”</p><p>Minn-Erva knew an opening gambit when she heard one. She crossed her arms. “Yeah, sure. You’re going to confirm my information at the next stop, right? You’re not going to just blindly take my word?”</p><p>“Oh yes, of course,” Thor agreed, so readily Minn-Erva suspected he’d never so much as considered it until this moment. Probably Valkyrie had, though, or Loki, or Heimdall. The three of them together might reserve enough judgment to make up for Thor.</p><p>Before he could gear up to his next thought, Minn-Erva said, “Can I go now?” And he, looking mildly deflated, agreed that she could.</p>
<hr/><p>Minn-Erva stared up the ceiling that night, still gasping. In the black paint, pinprick lights formed a portrait of a guy with tall hair. The ship’s previous owner, Valkyrie had said. Yeah, he looked the kind of ass who’d put his portrait on ceilings. “Your king’s a fucking bleeding heart,” Minn-Erva said, when she found enough air. </p><p>“Yeah,” Valkyrie agreed, a bit breathless herself. She’d hung Minn-Erva’s knees over her shoulders, and then she’d teased her tongue all the way down Minn-Erva’s clit, into her cunt, and up again, over and over until Minn-Erva came, shuddering, directly into Valkyrie’s mouth. It’d been pretty damn good.</p><p>It slowed the mental faculties some, though. It took Minn-Erva a moment to find her next thought. “He’s going to get you all killed. Himself, too.”</p><p>“Nah. We’re not going to let him.” Valkyrie said it with such self-assurance. She meant herself and the watcher and the brother and the human: a team unified in purpose, a closed circle that Minn-Erva was firmly on the outside of. For just an instant, Minn-Erva regretted that.</p><p>She’d been on this boat too long. She’d talked to too many people on it. Fucked Valkyrie too many times, probably, except just now she was having a hell of a time regretting that. “You wasted your credits on me. I haven’t shot a damn thing.”</p><p>“Yeah, I figured we’d see a pirate or two by now. Hasn’t been bad sharing quarters with you, though.” When Minn-Erva looked over, she saw the orange glow glinting off Valkyrie’s smile. Minn-Erva swallowed and looked away again.</p>
<hr/><p>Minn-Erva woke up too early. She stared awhile at that same ceiling while Valkyrie snored softly on her own bedroll. The last Minn-Erva had looked, wisps of hair had fallen over Valkyrie’s face, and Minn-Erva wanted to brush them out of the way. </p><p>Minn-Erva had definitely fucked her too many times. She was too old for this shit. She knew better. She didn’t specifically remember deciding not to fall for anyone, the way she’d decided never again to work for anything except money, but those inclinations felt of a piece: dangerous, stupid, always disappointing in the end. “<i>Fuck</i>,” she said, viciously enough that Valkyrie snuffled in her sleep. Minn-Erva pushed to her feet, put on her fatigues, and slipped out.</p><p>The mess was mostly empty at this hour. Minn-Erva filled a cup with hot spiced tea from the urn and took it to her gunner’s perch. The sky was empty, just as it was supposed to be. Minn-Erva took a sip of tea and burned her tongue. She cursed and took another, smaller sip.</p><p>Some stars went dark.</p><p>Minn-Erva paused, drink halfway to her lips. She blinked, and where there had been an amorphous region of pure void, now there were stars again. “Heimdall,” Minn-Erva said, as she’d been instructed. It felt ridiculous, just speaking to the air. “Thought I saw something off the port quarter.” She set her tea in the handy drink-holder—for cocktails, she remembered vaguely—and began flipping the switches on the plasma cannon. She kept her gaze on that place where the stars had disappeared. </p><p>Something flickered in the corner of her eye. When she focused on the spot, there was nothing—or rather, nothing unexpected, only the glint of a faraway sun. She found that the hairs had risen on the back of her neck. It was sheer decades-old instinct that made her fire at the next thing that caught her eye. The cannon flashed, which should have meant it hit something, but the next moment, the flash was swallowed up, as if she’d never fired at all.</p><p>“Heimdall!” Minn-Erva yelled. She flipped open the transmitter on the ship’s much more conventional built-in comm. “We’ve got a bogie here, port quarter, and I don’t know what the fuck it’s made of, but—” She paused to fire again when something wavered at the corner of her vision. Whatever it was, she missed it entirely this time. “It can move like a motherfucker, and it just ate my cannon fire.”</p><p>Heimdall’s steady, sober voice came over the line. “I see it. Keep firing.”</p><p>“At what?” she exclaimed.</p><p>“Wherever the stars aren’t,” he said.</p><p>Something collided with the ship. Klaxons began to sound. Minn-Erva called up the advanced targeting system, hoping for some kind of heat signature—something she could see. “Shit,” she breathed.</p><p>She saw it all right: a whole shoal of the things, teeming and shifting right in front of her, keeping pace with the ship. The thermal images were faint, which meant the creatures were hardly warmer than space itself. They moved dizzyingly fast and seemed to have no particular shape. She took aim at another and held the cannon’s gate open this time. The creature began to writhe on the screen. It grew steadily brighter, and then, just as it started to drift out of range, there was a sharp, sonic burst in Minn-Erva’s ear. The creature stilled and immediately fell far behind the ship. A couple of others peeled off to join it. </p><p>The ship rocked with another collision. Minn-Erva rode it out, picked another target, and fired again. The comm clamored in her ear, over the noise of the klaxons. Someone—the fucking rock guy—said, “Heimdall says they eat heat. They’ll tear the ship apart to get it if they can.”</p><p>“Well, fuck,” Minn-Erva said.</p><p>A tiny, bright figure appeared on her screen, riding one of the creatures, sparking brilliantly the screen. That would be Thor, Minn-Erva supposed. Then another appeared: Valkyrie. There was no reason for Minn-Erva to recognize that speck on her targeting system as Valkyrie, even after the hours of watching her attack and block and move on the training floor, and yet Minn-Erva was certain it was her, riding on the back of a giant heat-seeking amoeba trying to stab it with a sword. </p><p>She was already out there—on a tether, by the look of it, so at least that was something. There wasn’t anything Minn-Erva could do but gorge one creature after another with heat until it died, so that there were fewer of them for Valkyrie to, to reiterate, stab with a fucking sword. </p><p>Now the sword was glowing. Cracks of light shone across the creature’s surface. Well, at least Valkyrie wasn’t <i>just</i> stabbing it. Minn-Erva brushed the question aside and focused on the job at hand: shooting the giant space amoebas. She found a rhythm, that familiar battle rhythm that never strayed too far, however long she went without it. She took aim at one creature after another, in what seemed like an endless stream of them. The cannon moved as if it were part of her: payoff for all those hours with the training module, which had been pretty good after all. </p><p>Suddenly, in the corner of her vision, the Valkyrie figure stumbled. Then she was gone from Minn-Erva’s view, blocked by one of the creatures made of void. Minn-Erva didn’t hold her breath; insufficient oxygen led to mistakes. She was a professional. She kept her fire aimed at the target she already had, and she didn’t shift her focus, and she didn’t feel anything in particular at all.</p><p>Fissures of light opened in the blackness where Valkyrie had gone. That squeal of cosmic pain sounded in Minn-Erva’s jaw, almost beyond her hearing, and the next moment it was joined by the dying gasp of her own glowing target in hellish resonance. For a few seconds of agony, it was all she could do not to let go of the trigger and press both hands to her ears. </p><p>It was over. The creatures died and fell back, the last two remaining peeled away to join it, and the ship was alone again in the void. Two tiny dangling figures remained, tangled up in each other. Slowly they were reeled in, fish on a line. Minn-Erva slumped against the head rest. Her ears rang, already spiking into a headache. She kept her eyes open in case one of those things returned for one last whirl, and she reached for the comm. “What’s Heimdall got to say now?” she asked. “Are there any more of those?”</p><p>Rock guy relayed that Heimdall thought there were not. </p><p>“What about Valkyrie?”</p><p>“Well, I’m not sure—oh, it sounds like we’ve just pulled them in. She’s not looking so hot—”</p><p>Minn-Erva shoved out of her seat and stalked down the hallway. She had to pause after a few steps and brace herself against the wall—adrenaline crash, maybe also some effects from all those sonic blasts—and then she pushed on towards where she thought that tether must have been mounted. </p><p>She followed cries of alarm to the mess, which must have been the nearest large room at hand. Minn-Erva shoved through the crowd just inside the door. In the center of everyone, Thor was lying Valkyrie on a table. Her eyes were closed. There were livid burns across her face and hands. She was wearing different armor, something silver and gold that looked vaguely familiar. “Is she alive?” Minn-Erva said.</p><p>Thor stared through her. “Where’s Loki? And that healer we have, what’s her name?”</p><p>Minn-Erva swore viciously and moved in to grip Valkyrie’s wrist—carefully, to avoid the burned patches. She still had a pulse: thready, not ideal, but it was there. Across the table, someone was shoving Thor out of the way. Loki. “It had gotten hold of her,” Thor was saying. “I had to blast it directly.”</p><p>Loki spread his fingers a few inches above Valkyrie’s face. After a moment he grimaced. “This is beyond my skill.”</p><p>“But not beyond mine,” said another voice: female, elderly. The woman might have come up to Minn-Erva’s shoulder if she stood very straight. She brushed her fingers and pursed her lips. “All of you people, clear out of here. You couldn’t find a more hygienic place to put her?” This appeared to be directed towards Thor.</p><p>“You can save her?”</p><p>“Oh, I think so. The Valkyries were always made of sturdy stuff.”</p><p>For some reason, this phrasing struck Minn-Erva as odd. Then Valkyrie’s arm shifted in her grip. Valkyrie’s eyes fluttered open and focused on Thor. “Did we get ‘em?” she croaked.</p><p>“They’re gone,” Thor assured her. “The ship is safe.”</p><p>Valkyrie hummed in satisfaction. She shifted minutely to notice Minn-Erva, still holding onto her arm. “Hey.”</p><p>“You,” Minn-Erva said, “are a fucking idiot.” Of all things, Valkyrie smiled at this. “You almost died saving all these <i>other</i> idiots.”</p><p>“Hey,” said a familiar voice made of rock.</p><p>Looking less conscious by the moment, Valkyrie said, “Well, I am a Valkyrie.” Minn-Erva snorted, and then she had the very peculiar realization that no one else around the table seemed to find it funny. </p><p>Before she could follow that thought to its conclusion, the elderly woman plucked Valkyrie’s wrist from Minn-Erva’s grip and elbowed her out of the way. “Go on,” the woman said, not unkindly. “I’ll need space to work.” Valkyrie’s eyes were closed by then. Minn-Erva fumbled backward and sat abruptly down at the next table over, where she could still had a decent view of what was happening. </p><p>Spirit, what a morning. The timepiece on the far wall said she’d been awake for less than two hours. The adrenaline was well and truly crashing now, and falling asleep where she sat felt fairly likely.</p><p>She was shaken out of her daze by someone putting a warm bowl in her hands. It was the rock guy, and he’d just given her more stew, still with the protein cubes. He sat next to her with a bowl of his own. “How can you people stand to eat this stuff everyday?”</p><p>Korg, she remembered at last. His name was Korg. He gave her a broad, stony shrug and said,  “It’s not so bad once you get used to it.”</p><p>After all the excitement, she was hungry enough that it did, depressingly, not look so bad.  “It’ll do,” she said.</p>
<hr/><p>The next time Minn-Erva saw Valkyrie, they were both awake. Minn-Erva’d had a long nap, <i>more</i> stew, and a brief but sharp conversation with Heimdall, and now she peeked in the door at the room that had been requisitioned for Valkyrie. “I guess almost dying of a hell creature from the void means you get a room with a bed,” Minn-Erva said.</p><p>Valkyrie rolled her eyes. She looked better. She was leaning against a garishly printed pillow, more or less upright. Her face was thick with ointment over the burns, and her hands were bandaged.</p><p>“Or,” Minn-Erva continued, “maybe they gave it to you because you’re a damned Valkyrie.” That explained why the armor had looked familiar. One of Minn-Erva’s friends at the academy had been fascinated by monarchies, and Minn-Erva remembered the vivid illustration of a Valkyrie battle. She didn’t remember any of them looking like <i>this</i> Valkyrie, but it’d been a long time ago.</p><p>Valkyrie’s lips twitched. “You didn’t know.” </p><p>She felt well enough to be amused. Minn-Erva took that as reason to come sit on the bed by Valkyrie’s knees. Valkyrie shifted to make room. “I figured your parents were just pretentious,” Minn-Erva said. </p><p>Now Valkyrie did laugh, though there was more pain in the sound than Minn-Erva would have preferred. Then she said, “Hey, thanks for saving our arses out there.”</p><p>“I’d say you guys owed me combat pay, but there’s no way you could afford it.”</p><p>Valkyrie snorted her agreement.</p><p>“However, you’ll be happy to know everyone now agrees on the wisdom of having hired me on in the first place, although I think Heimdall would have appreciated some warning about those things.” Apparently while he <i>could</i> see creatures that were more or less made of void once he knew to look for them, they were quite difficult to spot in the first place. Well, fair enough.</p><p>“Pirates,” Valkyrie said, emphatically enough that she winced again. “I was expecting <i>pirates</i>. This sector is usually full of them. Although now I guess we know why we didn’t find any.” </p><p>They sat together a while with that sobering thought.</p><p>“Seriously, though,” Valkyrie said, “thank you.”</p><p>There was no point in Minn-Erva responding to that. It was what they’d paid her for. Instead she said, “That idiot Thor almost got you killed.”</p><p>Valkyrie considered her thoughtfully. “Do you really hate him as much as all that?”</p><p>“He doesn’t deserve you. None of these idiots do.”</p><p>“I almost got <i>myself</i> killed,” Valkyrie said frankly. “You were right about me pushing too hard. I lost my footing at a bad moment. Shouldn’t have happened. Thor’s the one who saved my life.”</p><p>“By electrocuting you.”</p><p>“Yeah, well.” Valkyrie looked down at her bandaged hands. “That creature came pretty close to getting him while he was doing it. Did he tell you that?” Thor had definitely not said that. “That’s what I’m saying. They’re not idiots because they’ll use you and leave you. They’re idiots because they won’t. Minn-Erva, they’re not like your Kree Empire.”</p><p>Minn-Erva turned sharply away. Valkyrie rustled in the bedclothes, and then her thickly bandaged fingers slipped between Minn-Erva’s. Minn-Erva looked and found Valkyrie regarding her with tremendous seriousness. “I’ve been used before by someone I fought for,” Valkyrie said. “I promise you, I know the difference.”</p><p>It was impossible to look Valkyrie in the eye anymore. Minn-Erva shook her head. “I know you’ve got some kind of ride-or-die thing for Thor, but you’re not going to sell <i>me</i> on it.”</p><p>“How about this, then,” Valkyrie said. “How about I make sure Thor and the others stay alive, and you come along to make sure I stay alive?”</p><p>Minn-Erva stared at her. Valkyrie looked almost—hopeful? “Are you serious,” Minn-Erva said flatly.</p><p>Valkyrie met her gaze steadily. “I could be.”</p><p>“I’m just some mercenary you picked up to shoot pirates.” And this was just another job, Valkyrie one more employer in a long, long line—except Minn-Erva hadn’t really believed that in a while. “You’ve known me a week.”</p><p>“Been a pretty good week, though,” Valkyrie said, with a smirk that said a lot more than words. Minn-Erva didn’t think all of them were sexual.</p><p>“And now you want me to go to <i>Earth</i>,” Minn-Erva said, because as objections went, that one was comfortingly concrete. She could hold onto it even when others were becoming slippery.</p><p>“Hey, I think we’ve already half talked Thor out of his fishing village idea. Now people are talking about building our own station somewhere in the same system.”</p><p>“The same system as Earth.”</p><p>“We can’t have everything,” Valkyrie said philosophically. “But we could have something.” She didn’t beg or plead. She didn’t implore with her eyes. She only kept on looking at Minn-Erva, stroking the inside of Minn-Erva’s palm with a bandaged finger. “We could give it a shot.”</p><p>Minn-Erva cradled injured Valkyrie’s hand in hers and, in a voice she didn’t quite recognize, said, “Well, I do like shooting things.”</p><p>Valkyrie’s brilliant smile shone even through the ointment.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>END</p>
</div>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>